


Dark Killjoys

by greedy_dancer



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fabulous Killjoys Fusion, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, M/M, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 21:57:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18859909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greedy_dancer/pseuds/greedy_dancer
Summary: Some days, Frank's glad the world ended. He feels better suited to the desert, to this life, than he ever did to the "normal" world. Here, he doesn't have to put on a nice face or make small talk with strangers or smile at the cash attendant while buying his fucking cigarettes. He never has to say "sorry" anymore.  In the desert, words are scarce and none of the guys would smile back, anyway.An exploration of the dark side of each of the main Killjoys.





	Dark Killjoys

**Author's Note:**

> Blast from the past!! This has been languishing in my WIPs folder since _2011_ , because I couldn't figure out whether I wanted to try and make it longer and find a way to redeem everyone or if -- for once in my life -- I was okay with actually writing something with no happy ending. 
> 
> Then, recently, a meme question ("What is the darkest thing you've ever written" lol) made me dig it out, and Jedusaur said they would like to read it, so I tried to tie up the loose threads enough that it would make sense to post as is, and voilà! 
> 
> Thank you to anna_unfolding who did a first beta and offered suggestions back in 2011, and to Jedusaur for the 2019 encouragement and beta!

_Frank_

Some days, Frank's glad the world ended. He feels better suited to the desert, to this life, than he ever did to the "normal" world. Here, he doesn't have to put on a nice face or make small talk with strangers or smile at the cash attendant while buying his fucking cigarettes. He never has to say "sorry" anymore.  In the desert, words are scarce and none of the guys would smile back, anyway.

There used to be days when the darkness would swell and he would grit his teeth and wait it out as best he could; his therapist would tell him to write in his journal or go for a walk or fucking _breathe_ , as if that would make the world less unbearable in any way. At the end of those days, his throat would be raw from too much smoking, and his palms would bleed from his nails digging in, too sharp, too hard.

Now, when he feels it swelling inside, he acts on it. He grabs a bike and goes out looking for trouble, for something to kill. He uses his raygun, and on particularly bad days his knife or even his bare hands. There's something really satisfying about digging your fingers into a Drac's trachea and feeling the crunch . In those moments, Frank always has a thought for his therapist . Fucking _breathing_ , for fuck's sake. 

So yeah, this situation is, weirdly, working out for him.  He's finally allowed to drop the act and hate the world, because now the world hates him back.

He rides back to whichever safe house the guys have chosen, lets the stabbing of the sand and the glare of the sun cleanse his skin, lets the beats of the MGMK he’s blasting fill his head and all the empty places where his rage used to be.

There's always a second of surprise when the safe house comes into view and the camouflage tarp they pull over the car and the bike is still there.

Frank told them, he knows he did; he was delirious with blood loss but he remembers telling Gerard about the darkness and the urges, and they have a _kid_ , for fuck's sake, surely anyone in their right mind could see he shouldn't be left around a kid.

They don't get it, though. They always wait for him to come back. Maybe they're all just as insane as he is. The longer Frank stays with them, the more it starts seeming like a distinct possibility. 

Gerard especially seems to see something in Frank that he knows just isn't there. There was that night when Gerard woke up in the middle of Frank's watch and Frank was petting the girl's hair, and Gerard whispered, "You're a good man, Frank." But of course there was nothing good about it. She'd been crying in her sleep, she would have brought attention to them, she would have been twice as annoying in the morning, she would have been an even bigger liability than she already was.

If Frank were a good man, he would stay away from Gerard, on the days when the feeling swells and there's nothing to kill.

The Zones aren’t actually crawling with Dracs, no matter how hard BL/ind tries to convince people of the contrary. So sometimes Frank comes back empty-handed; sometimes the sand and the sun feel like they're taking him to pieces instead of holding him together, and no matter how much he paces or kicks at the walls or fucking _breathes_   it doesn't go away, and he just knows he’ll lose his shit and jump at someone's throat if they look at him the wrong way.

That's when Gerard nods to him and walks out, and if Frank were a good man he wouldn't follow him. He'd see Mikey's concerned eyebrows and go kick at some cans. Instead, he goes to find Gerard by the car or around the back of the shed and fucks his throat or his ass, depending on what’s on offer.

Frank's not careful; he pulls at Gerard's stupid hair and digs his fingers into his hips and doesn't ask if Gerard's ready and doesn’t slow down when Gerard gasps. Gerard takes it and pushes back, and it's just like a fight, the rush of adrenaline and the pounding of Frank's heart and the need to feel something, someone break under his hands. Frank bites into Gerard's shoulder viciously and hears him cry out, crushes Gerard to himself and feels him jerk and tremble.

They don't talk and they don't kiss, and Frank doesn't know if Gerard does it out of some fucked-up sense of duty or if this is a _thing_ for him, too. He watches the red marks on Gerard's neck from the backseat and doesn't feel sorry.

The desert didn't make him a good man. He’s lucky it kept him a man at all.

*

_Mikey_

Mikey is well-versed in the vocabulary of sex. He had a lot, after all, back in the day. Sex with girls, some of them several times even, enough times to learn their names and how they liked their coffee; sex with boys, some of them looking like girls, some tall and broad and thrilling.

There was the ‘hello' sex and the ‘goodbye’ kind; the kind that said 'this party is boring' or ‘these pills made me horny’ or 'I'm sorry I forgot your birthday' (which was kind of nice, Mikey had to admit - cheaper than buying a gift _and_ you got laid – not that he ever did it on purpose, of course).

He had fast sex, sweaty sex, freaky sex, awkward sex, meaningless sex, friendly sex, loud, quiet, angry, sad; you name it. There was even 'I love you' sex, once, though Mikey tries not to think about that.

Point is, he used to have a lot of sex, of all kinds and flavors, more than most people got in a lifetime, probably, and then the world went to shit, and he thought that would be it. Life as a desert outlaw didn't exactly seem conducive to hook-ups, especially when your crew was composed of, like, your brother, the dude he was fucking, and a guy with a kid. 

Fuck if the desert hasn’t proved him wrong, though.

There are a lot more people in the Zones than he thought, for one. You just have to know where to find them, and somehow, Gerard does. He always manages to lead them to outposts and safe houses and other crews – how, Mikey hasn't figured out yet; he has some kind of radar, or maybe he remembers from his time in the City – and the life-and-death thing is actually proving great for Mikey's sex life. 

And so he's added nuances to his sex vocabulary. Now there’s 'holy shit, I heard you were dead' sex, and ‘we can’t let an _actual_ _bed_ go to waste' sex, and 'the way the fire reflects on your face makes me think of someone I once knew' sex, which he tries not to have too often, for his own sanity.  

And then, one day when Gerard is busy elsewhere, he adds ‘my crew needs this but we have nothing to trade’ to his repertoire. Which, more and more, turns into ‘we _do_ have something to trade, but wouldn’t you prefer _this_ instead?’

And maybe it’s fucked up, but that one feels the best, after—after he’s gotten rid of the smell and the taste; after the bruises start fading.

He knows his reputation is spreading; he knows the guys have heard things. He refuses to feel bad about it.

Why should he? He finally has something to contribute again. 

*

_Bob_

Bob used to run with the Killjoys, and now he doesn't, and no one talks about it.  

*

_Ray_

Ray doesn’t actually know how he’s come to be stuck with the kid. She isn't his, not in the way most people seem to think. Curly-haired people aren't all related, actually.

They were all there when they found her, but he was the only one with two hands free at the time, so he grabbed her and ran, trusting the guys to cover him. Them. No room in the car to lay her down properly, even with Mikey picking up the Drac's bike, so he let Frank ride shotgun – which he always did anyway, even though the fucker was actually smaller than them all and shouldn't have minded the cramped space in the backseat – and he rested her head on his lap, making sure her little doll didn't fall and get lost to the gross abyss of the footwell. 

Then he was the one to carry her out of the car and inside the diner, and he put her down on one of the blankets and checked her pupil response and whether she had a fever, and then he went to sleep in his usual spot, which just happened to be right next to her.

And that should have been that. As far as Ray was concerned, she was no different than anyone else they'd rescued before. (Well, Frank had stayed, but he was a special case.) They would get her stable, make sure she didn't die while they laid low for a while, and then drop her off somewhere, at one of the camps.

Except something strange started happening, over the next few days, where the guys would look to him every time they were discussing her. Quick glances and "You okay with that, Ray?" and all he did was hum and agree to whatever they'd decided before going back to his welding, but they all acted like he was making the decision anyway.

He cares for her, of course he does; but he resents the way she isolates him from the group. Not that the other guys don't participate and help take care of her, of course; Gerard tells her stories and Frank teaches her to shoot and one day when she's been inconsolable, Mikey disappears for an hour into the diner's storage room and comes back with that beer caps belt. She loves the thing so much it’s ridiculous.

But that’s just it: they _help_. They let him have the final word when it comes to her, always. It’s like they had a meeting and secretly decided she was his, except no one actually asked him if he wanted her.

They stop asking who'll stay behind during runs, and it's not like he’s sorry not to be risking death every day, or ungrateful that they’d volunteer to keep him safe, but it makes his cheeks burn with something like shame  when they come back bruised and bloodied.

He'd never even thought about having kids, before. Well, he'd thought about it in that vague, nebulous way you envision a distant future, something you don't actively want but are pretty sure is in the cards for you, somewhere down the line. Meet a girl, settle down, get a dog, have a kid. Grow old. Die. That’s what you did, before the Blast. No matter how vaguely terrifying you really found it, when you truly thought about it.

But those certainties died along with the old world. Or so Ray thought.

“So, what do you think, Ray?" Frank asks for what seems like the millionth time this week, and Ray's busy with something else, and he doesn’t fucking _care_ what they want to call her—she’ll tell them her name eventually, it’s not like she doesn’t have one— and he says "I don't care, just pick something.”

But Frank's insisting, like, "we can't _just pick something_ , she’s your--" and Ray loses it, hears his voice go all steely in that way Krista used to tell him was scary as shit, and he lets it all out, because she is _not_ his kid, he never _asked_ for this and he just _wants his fucking life back_ _._

He realizes something's wrong in the middle of a sentence, because Mikey's face is blanker than usual and Frank is throwing him wide-eyed glances and Ray says "Oh great, that's just fucking great!" and sure enough, when he turns, there she is, eyes huge and wobbly chin, clutching that stupid doll. 

He doesn't go after her when she runs off into the dark.

They get her back, of course. She doesn't speak to him for days and Ray is glad, and he feels guilty about it, and he hates that he does.

The guys pick up the slack with her and for the next run Mikey says his knee isn't feeling 100% and he'll stay behind, and Ray doesn't call his bullshit. She spits something venomous and Ray hears Mikey chide her, “Don't say that; you don't mean it,” and he slams the door to the diner on his way out.

It feels good, the adrenaline and the danger, fucking shit up, being reckless, instead of taking care of things. They make short work of the mission, grab the ammunition cases and leave the bodies in a pile before they torch the place, and afterwards they stop by the crossroads in Zone 4 to check their wounds as they wait for their contact to show up.

Ray sits in the car, legs hanging out of the open door, reclining in the shade provided by Frank sprawling on the windshield, smearing it with blood—too much for it to be all his. The gash on Ray’s forehead is still bleeding, but Gerard's using the cauterizer on himself in the backseat. Stomach wounds trump scalp wounds.

“We have to get rid of her,” Ray says. “You know we do. We’ll drop her off at one of the shelters. Should have done it weeks ago.”

“You know what will happen to her there,” Gerard says, and Ray knows. A kid, a girl, alone in the shelters. She'd be sold back to the city in no time and disappear in one of the underground whore houses. Or she'd have to pay for protection at the shelter, which is the same fucking thing anyway.

“Fuck. I never asked for any of this,” Ray says to no one in particular.

“You shoot with the gun that's in your hand,”  Frank replies, final, and gets the car started and back on the road.

*

  _Gerard_

Gerard knows exactly why Korse can't let him go.

The others think they're special, that they're a threat to BL/ind. They're not. It gives them something to gloat about, though, and it fuels the campfire conversations, and that's good enough for Gerard.

Gerard isn't sure how much Mikey knows about what he did, in the City. Mikey never asked, just welcomed him with a gruff hug the day Gerard came back. Mikey simply stepped aside and let Gerard take the lead, like it was nothing, like he knew it was what Gerard needed.

Still, he’s pretty sure Mikey has his doubts. He doesn't think the rest of the guys suspect anything, but Mikey's always been weirdly perceptive, and he gets this thoughtful look on his face each time a report mentions Korse catching up to them. Again.

Gerard wishes he could erase his memory like his gun blasts off Dracs , but each time he kills one he can't help thinking— maybe he knew this one. Then he remembers, maybe the Drac knew _him_ , and he presses extra hard on the trigger. 

It was an infiltration mission. Double agent stuff, a desperate attempt to get deep enough into BL/ind, close enough to Korse, to get info on Scarecrow. Gerard had volunteered; of course he had. He would have done anything back then, walked into the headquarters with bombs strapped to his chest if he'd thought it would help make them pay.

Dying like that wouldn't have brought her back, though. Instead he'd set to getting in as deep as possible, so he could bring down the whole thing with him when he went. 

And then… He wishes he could say he'd lost himself, gotten confused, but he knows the truth. He's not enough of a coward to try and make excuses. He'd started out filled with despair and rage, and it had been chipping away at him, bit by bit, and he would have done anything, taken anything, to make it stop, and Korse had looked so _peaceful_.

He'd yearned for that peace, that quiet, for ways to silence his mind and just forget. He would have done anything to forget. And so, he had.

His reports back to the Dr. had gotten scarcer and then had stopped altogether, and afterwards he said that he'd been too scared of being found out; that it’d jeopardize the mission.

Truth was, he'd let Korse get to him.

He'd listened to him and had been surprised to find out the man was brilliant, his unwavering certainty that he was doing the right thing such a relief from the relentless doubt plaguing Gerard every step of the way.  

It had been astonishingly easy to convince himself, at first, that the Runners didn't need him, that they would be better off without him, that Mikey would be safer that way; that eventually, he'd forget about Gerard and be happier for it.

The Runners were ultimately doomed, Korse had said, and Gerard had nodded. The crews whose coordinates he found were on borrowed time anyway.

Emotions caused nothing but pain, Korse had repeated, and Gerard had known it was true. Nothing he did really mattered—and the thought that had once caused him such agony became bliss, once he’d accepted his place in the machine.

Surrender was the only way to peace, Korse had whispered, and Gerard had closed his eyes and let Korse run his fingers over Gerard's shorn black hair and his lips on Gerard's throat, and he'd breathed deep until his pulse had evened out, and if Korse had asked for it, he would have given him anyone. Everyone. _Mikey._

That’s when he’d realized he would have to leave Korse and the City, and go back out there, into the sand and the noise and the pain and the mess.

That’s why he runs so fast and fights so hard. Why he goes for everything that’s loud, and bright, and brutal. That’s why he seeks out Frank’s touch when he knows that there’ll be bruises, that it’ll hurt.

It’s not the same kind of numb. But it’s enough that, for a moment at least, he’s not thinking about going back.

*


End file.
